Stigma in the Theater

Posted on December 5, 2008 in Bipolar Disorder Stigma

It is fashionable these days to show diseases such as autism in a positive light (e.g. The Black Balloon which is reviewed here), where the family learns that the sufferer has wonderful things to offer them. But in the literature of bipolar disorder, we see a different trend in which the sufferer is required to show that s/he was soley responsible for not seeing the effects the disease had on the people around her/him.

I’m not one to say that bipolar disorder is a party which if my family members’ eyes were just opened they, too, could participate in ((though it does feel that way when you are in a manic episode)) but too many accounts leave unsaid the important role that family can play in making things better or worse for the sufferer. The bipolar sufferer is often displayed as willfully insensitive to the needs of others. Even some doctors I know hold to this belief. In this model of manic-depression, we are said to be able to totally control the effects of our illness. The hallucinations, the being scared when our moods shift from exhilarating to feeling like a mossy old toad croaking doom in the wilderness, the racing thoughts, and the loss of control over our impulses are our fault. We let them go unabated. Society does not cut us the breaks it gives to the autistic even though both diseases are the result of brain dysfunction.

Little is said about the family members who rush us out of recovery and into jobs as soon as they think we are able to go. Or who tell us that we have to just stop being ill. Or who tell us that we aren’t ill at all, so why are we taking all these medications?

I would, for once, like to see a film which shows the external pressures a person afflicted with manic depression must undergo. I’d like to see a film where the family members have to come around to realizing that the bipolar sufferer has things to offer, that it is tough to have the disease, that s/he can grow well in her/his own good time, that they have to learn new ways of interacting with that person. Bipolar disorder needs its Rainman ((Blue Sky comes close, but we need more movies to show how crappy family members can be towards us. Note that my wife is great on this point. )) .